A brillo day; all sun and gentle breeze. We packed our snap and set out to wander what was the Steel Heart of Sheffield. "The Furnace Trail" is part of the Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust project and comes with a well illustrated booklet just about right for school kids. Unfortunately the floods in 2007 have set the project back a bit so some of the historically important buildings and material were still under wraps. Still it's work a wander along the 3 km trail.
The fact that so much industry was only 10 mins walk from the very centre of town is the first thing you notice. No wonder we had all the dreadful smog problems in what was only a few years ago.
The museum was closed (Friday) but that didn't stop memories of our experiences when we worked for industrial firms in Lincoln in the early 60s (Leys Castings and Gwynnes Pumps). Cobbled streets, gaunt stone and brick walled, massive buildings. Each building having all kinds of rusting pipes pocking out of them as though they couldn't contain their industrial entrails. Blackened chimney stacks piercing todays milky blue sky. No smoke. No steam. No People. No noise. Only the odd traffic and birds. Eeyrie - dead and buried industry.
Where there were filthy back-to-back workers hovels and works you now see swish blocks of flats (appartments) which seem to be mainly occupied by uni students. Manufacturing mills and works are now either delapidated and dangerous mausoleums to industry or they have been redeveloped into modern mass housing projects. Boxs housing the decendents of the masses who worked in dreadful condition in the same place. The irony is almost palpable - not that the occupants give any thought to it.
The fact that so much industry was only 10 mins walk from the very centre of town is the first thing you notice. No wonder we had all the dreadful smog problems in what was only a few years ago.
The museum was closed (Friday) but that didn't stop memories of our experiences when we worked for industrial firms in Lincoln in the early 60s (Leys Castings and Gwynnes Pumps). Cobbled streets, gaunt stone and brick walled, massive buildings. Each building having all kinds of rusting pipes pocking out of them as though they couldn't contain their industrial entrails. Blackened chimney stacks piercing todays milky blue sky. No smoke. No steam. No People. No noise. Only the odd traffic and birds. Eeyrie - dead and buried industry.
Where there were filthy back-to-back workers hovels and works you now see swish blocks of flats (appartments) which seem to be mainly occupied by uni students. Manufacturing mills and works are now either delapidated and dangerous mausoleums to industry or they have been redeveloped into modern mass housing projects. Boxs housing the decendents of the masses who worked in dreadful condition in the same place. The irony is almost palpable - not that the occupants give any thought to it. Walking these streets in the sunshine was cause for us to reflect on our early working experiences. Thank God for progress!